Kinshasa was a village on the south bank of the Congo when Stanley passed through in 1877. He returned in 1881 and established Leopoldville on the banks of contemporary Kintambo and Ngaliema. A post was opened upriver at Kinshasa in 1883. In 1923 Leopoldville was named the capital, comprising both Kinshasa and Leopoldville, established at Kalina (now Gombe), while "old" Leopoldville remained the capital of the Province. The Leopoldville-Kinshasa agglomeration was renamed Kinshasa in 1966.

TRANSLATE

Saturday, October 22, 2016

This unusual villa on Ave. de l’Avenir
in Ngaliema Commune is the residence of the Director General of Chanic,
originally the Chantier Naval Industriel du Congo. The house, which brings to
mind the French Quarter in New Orleans or a scene from a Tennessee Williams
novel, was acquired for Chanic’s top manager in 1930 shortly after the shipyards
was established at the original port of Leopoldville which H.M. Stanley created
in 1881 (See Mar. 5, 2011).The house is a part of my earliest
memories of Kinshasa (playing with the neighbors, the wood floors upstairs, the crunch of the gravel driveway) but only
recently did I learn that it was originally built as the first British
Consulate in Leopoldville.

The residence of the Director General of Chanic

In 1906, the United Kingdom decided to
build consular offices in Boma, Leopoldville and Stanleyville (now
Kisangani).As the capital of the
then Congo Free State, Boma had a long term diplomatic presence, but now His
Majesty’s Government was ready to put down roots. As early as March 1901,
Vice-Consul Roger Casement was tasked with finding a site for a consulate at
Stanley Pool, upriver from Leopoldville.In June 1903 Casement spent several weeks in Leopoldville (he was also
collecting information on abusive treatment of the Congolese), staying at Dr.
Sims’ house (See May 4, 2016).In fact, a map from
this period shows a Consulate site adjacent to the BMS mission in Kinshasa.
But, in the final analysis, the site in Leopoldville next to the American
Baptist Mission was granted by the Congo Free State government, although the
title never transferred.It is not
clear why the decision was made to locate at Leopoldville, but at the time, it
was a much more important settlement and the capital of the District of Stanley
Pool.

One proposed site for the new Consulate (left of the 2 pink parcels).
In today's Gombe Commune, this is would be the South African Embassy compound

The architect's design for the Leopoldville site (reference to "American Church" is Sims Chapel).

A view from the opposite direction. The Consulate built in the area labeled "Brousse", American mission at right.

In October 1906, the British Consul
requested that the Congo Free State reduce the tariff for shipping the
materials to Leopoldville via the Congo Railway from Matadi, but the
authorities in Brussels politely declined. In December His Majesty’s Office of
Works submitted plans to the Treasury for bungalows costing £4,000 to be built
in Leopoldville and Stanleyville. The residence was constructed between 1907-09
according to plans prepared by Robert Neill and Sons of Manchester at a cost of
£5,900, including materials shipped from England. In 1911 the cost of the Consulate was questioned in the House
of Commons, to which the respondent explained that Leopoldville was very remote
and it was difficult to get adequate labor, in short it was “a very expensive
place”.

The architect's design for the Consulate (front elevation).

The upper floor - Consul's residence.

The ground floor - Consulate offices.

The first resident of the Consulate was
Jack Proby Armstrong, who served as Vice-Consul in Leopoldville from 1905 to
1911.This period was the height
of the “Red Rubber” campaign in which British and American Protestant missionaries exposed the
brutal exploitation of Congolese by the extractive Leopoldian regime.In September 1909, the Presbyterian
African-American missionary, William Sheppard, was summoned before the Court in
Leopoldville in a libel suit by the Compagnie du Kasai whose labor practices
Sheppard had criticized. Armstrong and the American Consul William Handy,
witnessed the trial at which Sheppard was acquitted.During the trial, Sheppard lodged at Sims’ House at the
nearby American Baptist mission.

Side view of the residence today.

During World War I, the Vice-Consul’s
steam launch, the “St. George” was
sent to Lake Tanganika to join a British flotilla supporting the Belgian
campaign against the Germans in East Africa (See Aug. 3, 2014).After the war Vice-Consulate appears to have gone unfilled for certain
periods and in 1923 the building was leased to the colonial government.In 1930, the building was sold to
Chanic, most likely as a Depression economy move, although the following year
the Consulate was officially transferred from Boma to Leopoldville, now the capital of the colony. Two parcels
were obtained in Kinshasa, one for the Consul’s residence (the actual site of
the Embassy and Ambassador’s residence on Ave. Baudouin) and another in the
downtown area for a Consular office.

A Twenties-themed whimsical postcard

At some point after Chanic acquired the
building it was renovated to its current configuration and appearance.The wrap-around balconies
were enclosed with masonry walls on either side and the front enclosed with French
doors and louvered windows matching the original verandah support columns.A garage, tennis court and swimming
pool were added to the compound.

Another view of the northeast side.

The driveway and garage from Ave. de l'Avenir.

A cement elephant, Chanic's logo, in front of the tennis court.

Sources:

Room for Diplomacy. Catalogue of British Embassy and
Consulate buildings, 1800-2010.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

My family first moved to Kinshasa
in 1956. Then called Leopoldville, the capital of
the Belgian Congo was celebrating its 75th anniversary (See Mar. 5, 2011).It was home to some 350,000 Congolese
and another 20,000 Europeans. The city was about to be divided into 11 Communes
(to allow for local elections in 1957), plus a vast Territoire Suburbain, and
covered an area stretching from Limete and the Ndjili River in the east to
Commune Ngaliema at the level of Ave de l’Ecole in the west.The city was developing rapidly with
high rise apartment buildings popping up in the downtown area and vast, planned
residential communities for Congolese under construction by the Office des Cités
Africains in Bandalungwa, Matete and Ndjili (See Sept. 30, 2011).The city now
comprises 21 Communes, having absorbed the Territoire Suburbain, and its
population in excess of 10 million qualifies it as one of Africa’s seven
megacities. It is also the largest Francophone city in the world.

We’ve returned to Kinshasa for a
two-year assignment. We have an apartment in one of the high-rise buildings
that would have been under construction back in 1956, the heyday of “Tropical
Modernism” (See Aug. 15, 2011). These
relics of the colonial period are now dwarfed by a number of 25 and 30 story
buildings going up all over Gombe Commune.The real estate boom that began in the late 2000s is making
its mark throughout the city, and not just in Gombe.It is easy to be seduced by the crisp lines, the
glass facades, the towering construction cranes and the Dubai-inspired designs.
There is definitely pent up demand stemming from the declining years of the
Mobutu era and the challenging beginnings of the Kabila regime.But there remains a huge gap between
the lifestyle enjoyed by the Congolese elite and the expatriate community and
the majority of Kinois.

Kinshasa’s architectural heritage
is under threat as villas and other structures on large lots are demolished for
multi-story towers that occupy the entire parcel with virtually no
setback.While Boulevard du 30
Juin, Boulevard Lumumba, Ave. Liberation and other arteries have been rebuilt
to handle large traffic volumes, many side streets which host these major
traffic magnets are significantly congested throughout the day.Many one and two story buildings of the
colonial era are falling into disrepair, their shabby facades and rooflines just
visible over security walls. Awkward adaptations further degrade their
appearance.

Old Art Deco building on the Boulevard

New apartment complex going up behind a colonial era villa

One of my pastimes here has been
to guide architectural history tours of the city (See Jan. 11, 2011).Five
years ago, I returned to Kinshasa for the 50th anniversary reunion of
the American School of Kinshasa (TASOK).Before my former classmates arrived, I retraced the route of the
Historical and Architectural Heritage Tour I organized for the 2005 reunion and
noted a number of changes at that time (See July 3, 2011). Were I to organize
the tour today, several stops would have to be introduced with, “On this site
once stood…”,The Texaf complex on
Ave. Mondjiba, the first textile mill in the country, no longer produces its
brightly colored cloth and has been converted into a sprawling real estate
venture called Immotex, providing office space for NGOs, the UN and some
embassy back offices. At Petit Pont at the curve of Ave. Justice, Chez Nicola
restaurant, itself successor to the Auberge Petit Pont and its unique outdoor
cinema, is now the site of a huge concrete and glass building whose owners are
working to complete the street-side entrance and sidewalks so they can obtain
the certificate of occupancy.

Texaf on Ave Mondjiba

Texaf nearly 90 years ago when King Albert visited

Building at site for former Chez Nicola

Petit Pont restaurant (later Chez Nicola) in the early 1950s. Note the same circular flower bed.

Closer to downtown the site of
the Union Mission House and the BMS mission is transformed.UMH is now the Residence Oasis and
across the street, stand two new apartment blocs which just last week the
complex received a sign proclaiming it as “The Peace”, commemorating BMS’
steamer “The Peace” (See Mar. 5, 2011).
The Baptist mission, now the Communauté Baptiste de Fleuve Congo (CBFC) appears
to have entered into what is euphemistically called “auto-financement” with a
property developer.One only hopes
the church and its faithful will benefit.

Former UMH (CAP) on Ave. Kalemie

"The Peace" apartment complex

Finally, the Gare Centrale, still
the Gare Centrale, has gotten a face-lift. Covered with orange tiles and a faux
tinted window, it has yet to reopen, but one can buy tickets for weekly express
trains to Matadi in the courtyard.Outside the Gare there used to be a bas-relief commemorating the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the railway in Kinshasa in 1898.The sculpture was removed in 1971 and
an artist has reproduced a Congolese version of the role Congolese played in
the construction of the railroad. The original bas-relief has now been added to
the collection of colonial statuary on display on the grounds of the National
Museum at the base of Mont Ngaliema.

New edition Gare Centrale

Mural commemorating the construction of the railroad from Matadi

The 1948 version of the bas-relief at the Gare, now at the National Museum

The Museum, located at the site
of Stanley’s original encampment, would definitely be an addition to the
Heritage Tour (See July 5, 2011).Another development since my last visit
is the return of Henry Stanley’s statue to a vertical position.A “Friends of Stanley” group in UK
financed the repair of the statue to attach it to the base from which it was
sheered at the ankles in 1971. The collection of Congolese artifacts on display
could benefit from improved presentation and better lighting.In July, the South Korean Government
began construction of a new National Museum on the Blvd. Triomphal.

Henry Morton Stanley's statue at the Museum

Stanley's statue in 2010

An innovation in public transport
is the small right-hand drive Toyotas and other brands imported from the Gulf
States which ply the streets as shared taxis.Called “ketches” (sneakers) they bring to mind bumper cars (with
about as much attention to the rules of the road) and add significantly to the
congestion.On the other hand, the
smaller number of passengers per vehicle has allowed the opening up of many new
side routes, a boon for Kinshasa commuters. The Transco bus system, yet another
attempt to provide public transport in the city, now have fare machines that
accept pre-paid cards.

A clutch of "ketches" threading through traffic

New Transco buses on Blvd 30 Juin

Another automotive innovation are
the food trucks, which seem to do a brisk business in high traffic areas such
as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Supreme Court and at the Place des
Evolués.Finally, a number of intersections now have robots that
regulate traffic.Designed and
built by a Congolese woman engineer and her organization, Women Technology, the
machines are powered by solar panels atop their stands and can have cameras
installed behind their sunglasses to record traffic violators.

A food truck at Place des Evolués

Robot at Kintambo Magasins with Congo flag as pagne. Ubiquitous "ketche" with import stickers still on the windshield.

Kinshasa is a city in constant change and evolution. It has
always been a remarkable place to live.I’m looking forward to being a part of it again.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

click on the Tabu Ley link to "Kaful Mayay" above.(apologies for the commercial, skip to the music)

The Muhammad Ali – George Foreman
World Heavyweight Championship, later dubbed the “Rumble in the Jungle”, was
held in Kinshasa October 29, 1974. The match took place in the Stade du 20 Mai
(originally Stade Roi Baudouin, now Stade Tata Raphael) and the fight began at 4:00 am on October
30 to accommodate prime time TV in the US.

Originally scheduled for
September 24, the fight was postponed until the end of October after George
Foreman suffered a cut above his right eye in a training bout with his
sparring partner.As a high school
teacher in Shaba (Katanga Province), I initially wondered if I might be able to
attend the match and report back from vacation a couple weeks late, but when
the event was postponed, I dutifully made my way back to Manono.

Foreman (with bandage), Mobutu and Ali at Stade du 20 Mai

Ali with the "Bouclier de la Revolution" on Mont Ngaliema

Foreman at his training camp at Nsele

The event was a prestige extravaganza
for President Mobutu, organized only months after his momentous speech at the
UN General Assembly, as another way to put Zaire on the map.A music festival called “Zaire 74” was
held in September, featuring the locally popular James Brown, was well as others less
well-known in Zaire, including B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, Bill Withers, Manu Dibango and Celia
Cruz.

A Kinois contemplates a billboard announcing the fight

One of Kinshasa's taxi-buses gets on board

Zaireans were solid fans of Ali,
and many still referred to him as “Cassius”.From a technical standpoint, the younger Foreman - the
reigning Heavyweight champ - was favored to win, but Ali pursued a strategy forcing
Foreman to expend a lot of energy in punches that had little effect.Finally in the 8th round,
Ali landed a lightning series of blows that sent Foreman to the mat.Foreman got up, but the referee called
the match.Some observers
speculated that the fans would not have accepted a Foreman victory.

The boxing ring takes shape in the Stade

The Stade is full on October 29

Round 8 ... its over

Earlier that year, popular
musician Tabu Ley (Rochereau) released a song called “Kaful Mayay” which came
to represent the spirit of the match.Side two of the record included references to “Beta ye” (hit him) and
Boma ye (kill him) in Lingala, and Zairean listeners across the country found in the tune a personal connection with the historic match.In Manono, the week after the fight, bar patrons would break
into spirited brawls whenever the song was played.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

One hundred
twenty-five years ago, Dr. Aaron Sims built a small brick chapel overlooking
Ngaliema Bay on the banks of the Congo River, with the help of Congolese he
trained in construction and brick making. It is the oldest permanent building
in Kinshasa and the oldest house of worship in the capital. A peer of Chief
Ngaliema and Henry Morton Stanley, by 1891, Dr. Sims had already lived in
Leopoldville for eight years and was consequently instrumental in the early
development of the city.

Sims Chapel today

Sims
was a missionary of the Livingstone Inland Mission (LIM), an ecumenical British
group that, beginning in 1878, sought to establish a chain of mission stations
across Central Africa to further the work of David Livingstone. Sims sailed for
the Congo at the head of a new LIM group in May 1882. Although a small LIM team
had ventured to the north side of Stanley Pool (today’s Brazzaville) in December
1881, LIM now wanted to establish a base at the Pool to support further
expansion into the heart of the Congo.By this time, Henry Stanley had completed his forward base at the Pool for
the International Association of the Congo (AIC in French), and another British
missionary group, the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS), established a station
there in July 1882 (See Mar. 5, 2011).
Sims met Stanley at Manyanga (near contemporary Mbanza Ngungu) on his way along
the caravan route to the Pool and obtained a lease for the LIM station on a plot
of land at Leopoldville (The notion that Stanley negotiated the land concession
on LIM’s behalf on the grounds of the current CBCO complex, as suggested in my Jan. 13, 2011 post, is the stuff of
urban legend, as the following narrative will clarify).

American and British mission stations between the coast and Stanley Pool

Contemporary artist's depiction of Stanley Pool.
Sims' station was in the wooded valley between the steamer (center) and the sandbar (right)

Sims
and fellow missionaries Joseph Clark and K.J. Pettersson reached the Pool in
February 1883. Within the first week Pettersson completed a 4 x 6 square meter
house.There was some initial
friction between the missionaries and Stanley and the AIC.Though billed as a philanthropic and
scientific venture, the AIC was actually King Leopold’s ruse to gain control of
the Congo Basin.As such, he
was wary of British missionary groups that might open the way for British capitalist
interests. Consequently, Stanley was advised to keep missionaries close to his
own stations where their evangelical work could also provide a humanitarian fig
leaf for Leopold’s plans.The
missionaries, for their part, were horrified to witness the brutal treatment
meted out on the Congolese by Stanley’s troops along the caravan road and
sought to distance themselves.When the LIM party encountered a welcoming Bahumbu chief at Ngoma, 15
miles south of Leopoldville they initially planned a station there, but Stanley
prevailed on them to locate near his base at the Pool. (Interestingly, 15 miles
due south of Ngaliema Bay are the Chutes de la Lukaya & Lola ya Bonobo
sanctuary.As this is on the
railway line and general route of the caravan trail, it is possible that Ngoma
was in the vicinity – see map above).

Artist's rendering of the LIM station at Leopoldville

By
mid-1883, Sims and his compatriots had completed a permanent station on an 3-hectare
site, including housing for a married missionary, another to accommodate one or
two single missionaries, houses for Congolese workers, a kitchen and storehouse.
There was also a building to store parts for the steamer “Henry Reed”, which was being brought up from the coast in pieces by
porters. The station was located in a valley about 1 km from the river, most
likely in the vicinity of the contemporary St. Leopold Church on Ave. des Ecuries.Stanley noted approvingly, “the site is
fine, the mission place compact, neat, well-regulated…the most complete affair
I have seen on the Congo”. In 1884 Stanley approved an expansion of the LIM
mission site.

In
September 1884, LIM ceded its work to the American Baptist Missionary Union
(ABMU, later ABFMS and now the Communauté Baptiste du Congo, CBCO),
transferring all property and rights in the Congo for $125,000. Dr. Sims and several
other LIM missionaries elected to join ABMU and continue the work.The rainy season that year produced
unusually high waters and the missionaries decided to launch the hull of “Henry Reed” from the BMS beach (within
the present Chanic shipyards) and complete the superstructure afterwards.At the time, Sims was on a 6-month trip
to Stanley Falls (Kisangani) with BMS missionary George Grenfell in the BMS’ steamer
“Peace”. In 1885, Sims attempted to
establish an ABMU station at Stanleyville, but had to abandon the initiative
the following year when the Belgian military campaign against the Afro-Arabs
raised insecurity in the region.Sims returned to Leopoldville and travelled on to UK and the United
States, where his favorable description of the work in the Congo help
strengthen American support for the new mission field.

The "Henry Reed", named for a LIM donor in Australia

The
“Henry Reed” was key to supporting
and extending the chain of stations on the arc of the Congo River. Capt. Arthur
Billington made a first trip up river in the “Henry Reed” in January 1885, reaching Wangata (Mbandaka), which had
been established by Pettersson. New stations were subsequently opened at
Tshumbiri, Irebu and Ikoko.As one
of the few steamers operating on the upper Congo, the “Henry Reed” often carried non-missionary passengers and cargo,
including Emory Taunt of the U.S. Navy’s Congo Expedition, German explorers
Kund and Tappenbeck and the botanist Dr. Buttner, as well as agents of the
Congo Free State.In 1886, the Congo
Free State (successor in 1885 to the AIC) contracted the steamer to transport
supplies for the Afro-Arab campaign.In return, ABMU staff would be granted free passage on Free State
steamers. In March 1887, the “Henry Reed” was returned to ABMU, just as Henry
Stanley arrived in Congo at the head of the Emin Pacha Relief Expedition to the
Province of Equatoria in Sudan.Considering the options of shorter routes to Sudan via East Africa, the
rescue expedition was essentially a public-relations gambit by Leopold II to
demonstrate his mastery of the territory.Stanley found the State steamer fleet in Leopoldville in disrepair and
requested use of the “Peace” and “Henry Reed”.Billington refused, citing the need for repairs on his
recently returned steamer.Furious, Stanley sent a military squad to seize the “Henry Reed”, which sailed April 29, 1887 towing a barge with 131
men aboard.Stanley claimed in his
memoirs that Sims had applied for a position with the Expedition, but having
been denied, sought to hamper his “humanitarian” mission.

The "Henry Reed" departs Leopoldville. Note American "Stars and Stripes" flag over bow.

On
his return to the Congo from the US in 1887, Sims continued to work on
compiling a Kiteke dictionary, translating the Gospel of John, and collecting
vocabulary for a Kibangi dictionary, a precursor of Lingala spoken on the upper
river. By 1888, Sims’ lease was coming to an end and his house had become “old
and good for nothing” so he decided to purchase land in the African town
(Ntamo), where he had been conducting regular Sunday services among the Bateke
residents. "On the river-side in the town I have built a frame house, eight feet from the ground, on piles adapted to my work, and completed it substantially except the walls, which for want of funds are partly covered with mats and boards from provision boxes". A school, small hospital and solid warehouse to store goods destined for stations on the upper river were also under construction.

Map of Leopoldville prior to Sims move (old station lower left, new site center right)

Throughout
1889, Sims was alone at Leopoldville, as Billington and Glenesk had left to
occupy stations upriver.In
addition to treating the sick, he was building a dormitory to house the school
children.In August, he noted, “I am alone,
and so cannot leave the place, as caravans arrive always … I feel my loneliness
acutely”. In November he reported, “Transport down country has been slack,
but now as some cloth has come to Lukunga (near Mbanza Ngungu), I suppose I
shall have a brisk time, as some three hundred loads have accumulated” (at
Matadi). His
duties as logistician were significant, "Sixteen hundred carrier's loads for us and the Congo Balolo Mission (CBM -- another offshoot of the LIM) passed through my hands last year, and being alone I was not able to visit the surrounding country." This amounted to 96 tons of cargo painstakingly transported over 350 kilometers of caravan trails in 60-pound loads.

In
December 1889, Dragutan Lerman, a Croatian explorer who had worked with Stanley
when Sims first arrived in Congo, visited the station. Sims, he observed, had,

"arranged his station nicely, consisting of the main building occupied by Dr. Sims and surrounded by chalets for the guests (guest-room, warehouses and the kitchen). On the right of the main building is the hospital, with a capacity of 20 beds. Opposite the hospital is the school where 20 pupils are learning how to read or write. This is all under Dr. Sims' control, who does it alone without anybody's help. He works diligently the whole day, working for the well-being of humanity without discrimination of color."

ABMU house at the new station.

In
January 1891, Sims wrote to ABMU headquarters in Boston, “The Chapel is full
each day of our own people, strangers, and the sick, so that I must set about
building a new one of adobe brick when the weather permits.” The previous Christmas
day, Sims had received reinforcements, Fritz and Boletta Gleichman. They were, “delighted to find such a
nice-looking station, good buildings, and well-laid-out grounds, good
storehouses, schoolroom, and hospital and boy’s house, and so genial a man as
Dr. Sims.” Gleichman immediately began looking for
suitable land on which to build a house, which he estimated would cost about 30
or 40 Pounds. By March, he could report he’d been granted 150 meters of land
next to Dr. Sims’ on which, “we intend to leave a space for a good chapel to be
built in the future”. The sale
contract stipulated a payment of £21 to the State and £10 to the local
Congolese authorities.

Gleichman
became actively engaged in building his house, which involved felling giant
Nlongwa (Hallea Stipulosa) hardwood
trees from the swamp where Ave. du Montagne now runs behind the CBCO
property.Workers had already cut
7 Nlongwa, which yielded 44 large pieces of timber and Gleichman ordered
another 12 to be taken down for lumber, noting, “It is a dreadful task to get
out timber; the men sink in water and mud up to their hips with the heavy loads
on their shoulders.”

The
ABMU station now comprised fourteen buildings, all set on pilings, made of
local timber including plank roofs, though Sims’ house had a corrugated iron
roof and Gleichman planned the same.The doctor estimated that the structures could last 15-20 years if cared
for properly.A better solution
would be to build in brick, which was resistant to termites. Sims had decided
to build a brick cook-house and was instructing the school students how to make
and lay bricks. By July 1891, the students had made thousands of bricks, though
Gleichman appealed to headquarters for a brick press costing £15 (half the cost
of his land) to speed up the process and enhance the students’ skill
training.As Sims described,
“Thus order, tidiness, the use of
the straight line, and industry have been taught without constraint, and I
fully believe they have been happy”. Sims had built a kiln and was ready to
fire floor and roofing tiles.

Brick pharmacy at the Ntamo station.

This
effort produced a new pharmacy built of brick, and incorporating more skilled
carpentry.Sims was now ready to
realize his dream from when he first came to the country, to gather together
the people – the church – in a building he would help them to make.The new structure begun in October 1891
would be 20 by 60 feet, built according to the best plans he could find adapted
to the country. The design incorporated gothic windows and an altar and seating
plan in the form of a cross.When
the building was completed, some 50 Congolese members began worshiping there.

The new chapel.

Then
in 1892, the Bateke under Chief Ngaliema, fed up with the exactions of the Congo
Free State authorities, relocated en-masse across the Pool to Brazzaville.Although the Bateke had not been
particularly receptive to Sims and his colleagues’ evangelism, the departure of
several thousand people significantly reduced opportunities for outreach and
witness.The Baptists could not
close the station because it was critical as a transportation nexus for the
mission stations upriver.In
addition, the school, run by the Gleichmans drew students from a wider region
comprising eight ethnic groups.

Side view of the new chapel.

Fritz
Gleichman died suddenly in June 1893 and was buried behind the chapel, overlooking
Ngaliema Bay.His is the only
grave on the compound.Thomas
Adams, a new missionary who had come to serve as evangelist on the “Henry Reed”, stepped in to support Dr.
Sims.He accompanied Mrs.
Gleichman to Matadi and then returned to take over the schoolwork.He remained Sims’ longest serving
collaborator in Leopoldville.

The headstone on Fritz Gleichman's grave.

In
1893, Sims built another brick building on the station.Known in later years as “Sims’ House”,
there is no mention of any residential construction in the “Baptist Missionary
Monthly” during the 1893-94 period. Frank Vincent, an American world-traveler and journalist visiting
in September noted, “Among the buildings of the Mission is a neat little brick
church, and, besides the dwelling for the future missionaries, an edifice is in
course of erection which is to serve for a technical school.Elsewhere the boys are now taught
carpentry, and brick and tile making”.Given the likelihood
that facilities for Congolese were separated from the missionary residences and
church situated above the river, this new technical school could have been the
building, which in 1961 housed the first classes of the American School (See Jan. 13, 2011).

Rear view of "Sims' House"

Date plaque in the gable end of "Sims' House"

The
work of managing such a large station was wearing on Sims.He had to cope with receiving and
shipping goods, tending to sick white people (in addition to his regular
Congolese patients), hosting visitors, maintaining correspondence and reports.
In early 1894, landowners were instructed to demonstrate “effective occupation”
of their properties or risk losing them.Sims organized planting thousands of fruit trees on the concession and
was constructing a farm building for a few cows he had acquired.A violent tornado in March 1895 caused
extensive damage to ten buildings on the station, including the “handsome
industrial school”.The Congo
Balolo Mission’s storehouse was lifted into the air and deposited some distance
away without causing any injury.

A
fundamental change in transportation technology was beginning to impact
Leopoldville.The railway
approaching from Matadi was starting to draw curious young people away.There were problems with porters who
did not deliver their loads, and as a consequence, the mission lacked barter
goods to exchange for food.This
affected the remuneration of preaching staff and was less of an incentive for
children to attend school.Still,
Sims was upbeat about the coming of the train, as it would free large numbers
of Congolese from the burden of portage – “100,000 loads a year” – and ease the
travel of evangelists to reach distant villages.In early March 1898, he observed with pleasure that the
railway would arrive at Kinshasa in a week’s time (See Jan. 23, 2011).The Leopoldville station was only 50
meters from the mission.

The train station at Leopoldville (now Kintambo Magasins)

After
the arrival of the railroad, Sims took his first furlough in twelve years and left
the station under the supervision of the Congo Balolo Mission, which maintained
a transport base there.He visited
American Baptist missions in Asia and addressed the American Baptist annual
meeting in the US.When he returned
to Congo in October 1900, he was assigned to Matadi, where he resumed his role
as multi-talented healer, preacher, treasurer, logistics master, transportation
coordinator and host to weary travelers, serving in the port city until his
retirement in 1922. By mutual
agreement, the station at Leopoldville and the “Henry Reed” were turned over to CBM, which serviced the upriver
Baptist stations while Sims provided similar logistic support to CBM from
Matadi.The American Presbyterian
Congo Mission operated the steamer “Lapsley”
in support of its work in the Kasai region from the mission, represented
locally by a Congolese named Mpeya. The CBM representative also managed the
facilities as a guesthouse for transiting missionaries of all groups, who tended
to be offended by the insalubrious and intemperate conditions in the local
hotels.One of the guests included
William Henry Sheppard, an African American Presbyterian missionary, who stayed
in Sims’ house in early 1909 while awaiting trial for libel against the
Compagnie du Kasai rubber company.

Sims Chapel during the period of CBM tenure.

Sims Chapel during the CBM period - note reference to "Mission Anglaise"

In
1902, the first conference of protestant missions was held on the campus, and
the meeting led to the formation of the Congo Protestant Council (now Eglise du
Christ au Congo).At the second
meeting of the Council held in Leopoldville in 1904 and again in 1906,
resolutions denouncing the Leopoldian regime’s barbaric treatment of the
Congolese were issued. Much of the
documentation of these atrocities was compiled by British Consul, Roger
Casement, who hired the “Henry Reed” for an extended fact-finding journey in
June 1903.At the January 1904
conference, ABFMS transferred the “Henry
Reed” back to CBM, thanking its representative for his “kindness and
hospitality” and “faithful care of the property”.

Leopoldville in 1903. The Baptist mission is located above the "GO" in Congo.

Chapel service during the CBM period.

The Chapel in 2004.

Art exhibit organized by Symphonie des Arts in 2004. Table in foreground was saved from the "Henry Reed"

In
1912, ABFMS and CBM discussed the proposition that the former reopen the
Leopoldville station with a resident missionary, as CBM wanted focus its
resources on its mission field in Equateur Province.Instead, missionaries from Sona Bata (90 kilometers west on
the railway line) visited the church in Leopoldville regularly until Pastor
Moses Kikwakwa was assigned in 1922. The “Henry
Reed” was sold to Leopoldville businessman Emile Delcommune in 1916.At the onset of the Depression, the old
steamer was moored in Kinshasa when a severe windstorm sank it. Once
Leopoldville became the capital of the colony in 1928, the Mission decided to
relocate its administrative headquarters from Matadi to Leopoldville (See. Apr. 30, 2011).

SIMS CHAPEL THROUGH THE YEARS

1950s - taken about the time I moved to Leopoldville.

1966 - the city is now called Kinshasa

1978 - Commemorative card for the Centennial of Protestant evangelism in Congo.
Artwork for the gothic windows was completed by Martha Emmert's students.